Monthly Archives: August 2009

Emily and I went to Vermont today with Cali and Rob to watch the Demo Derby. The Derby was kind of slow because it was too muddy so we left early. We drove around Wimlington for a bit, and checked out my old KH. Which is out of buisness and up for sale. Then we went to Brattleboro and did some shopping and stopped at my favorite swimming hole. It was fun to be with Cali and Rob.

I actually had my first century road ride planned for saturday, but with a major storm moving through the area, it wasnt a good day for biking, it might have been a good day for surfing but my right ear was still recovering from really bad swimmers ear I got after surfing all last weekend. However it was perfect weather to be in the presidentials.
We got to the Cog at 9:30 and did 9 miles and 4 4K peaks in 6 hours. I went on this hike with Clifton, a friend I grew up with whose father had a huge infuence on my outdoorsey lifestyle.

This is what the gauges at the Lakes Hut read after it took all of our strength to get the door open to get in.
The hike started out wet but mild on the ammo ravine trail: Clif
Before we got to lake in the clouds we had to throw our rain coats on. Every person we met on there way down tried to talk us out of goin any higher, Ha ha.
Lakes Hut
We stopped at the hut, threw some more rain gear on and assesed what we were going into. The hut caretaker was actually a cool older guy. Normally hut crew are obnoxious, but this guy despite dealling with a bunch of people that were in over there heads, took the time to talk to us, but he never tried to talk us out of going any higher like he was everyone else. When we told him we were going to Mt Jackson he started calling us the Jackson Boys. We hiked up Monroe next
trying to stand on the summit in the wind:

I’m not sure if I have ever been up there when the wind was out of the east before, but it was strange to feel the winds comming from that direction. Heres a little vid clip I shot on Monroe:http://www.flickr.com/photos/surf88/3869094326/
Next stop Eisenhower where it felt even windier:http://www.flickr.com/photos/surf88/3868308251/
The Summit of Ike:
After Ike the crawford path drops into the trees so the wind wasnt so bad, but it was hard to talk this spruce grouse into moving off the trail:
Next Stop Mt Pierce:
and then Mizpah:
When we started up Jackson it was starting to sleet! My first frozen precip I’ve seen since Hillmans in May.
We made it down to Crawford Notch at 3:30.
I had left my car at crawford depot, the highland center was packed with tons of “hikers” that werent doing much hiking. In fact, between Lake in the Clouds and Mt Jackson we only saw two other people on the trail.

After doing volunteer construction all day friday we biked about 15 miles of single track in the evening, and then woke up saturday morning at 6:30am (below 50 degrees made for a chilly ride) and put 37.5 miles on the road bike before going back to do more volunteer construction work. It was a busy weekend.